You had to be extremely careful when you went outside in the dark. The polar bears really wandered around a lot. They were looking for food in garbage dumps. The places I worked, we had very large incinerators to burn up everything that would burn to try to keep them away. Also we had arctic foxes. You had to be careful of them for the rabies potential.

In the summer, we had barren ground grizzlies wandering around. One summer we were drilling a well about 100 miles south of Deadhorse/Prudhoe Bay in the foothills of the Brooks Range. One grizzly tried to climb the V-door (pipe ramp) up to the drill floor of the rig. That was about 30 feet off the ground. The angle of the ramp was too steep and he never figured out how to use the stairs. But two guys were standing there with a couple of high powered rifles at the ready in case he did......lol He finally wandered off across the tundra. The last day I remembered it snowing was July 10th about 2 am. By 6am the snow was all melted and by noon the mosquitos had arrived....clouds of them. Really a pest for about a month and then they disappeared.

One of the reasons they such a problem with alcoholism is that "staying indoors." I was there from 73-75. The runway at Deadhorse was gravel. Wien Air Alaska pioneered the use of 737s on gravel strips. Scared the hell of me the first time. I got on the 737 in Anchorage and figured it was an okay place......lol Then they landed on a gravel strip.

Deadhorse was/is not the end of the world....but you could/can see it from there...

My friend that worked in Barrow mentioned the alcoholism problem more than a few times. He said it wasn't too unusual to find one of the native americans (sometimes even children) wandering about dead drunk in the cold. For their own safety, they would bring them into his work place and let them sleep it off. He said there were quite a few times when he had 2 or 3 people snoring away in the corner of the room while he was doing his work.

He worked for the US Government and to get people to work up there, the government gave them a number of perks, one of which was to pay for shipping of his belongings up there. That included his car, which was shipped on a cargo plane from Anchorage. He said there wasn't much in the way of roads up there, but he at least had it to drive around town. They also shipped it back when he left.

He apparently didn't see polar bears too often because the local police worked to keep them chased out of town. That was where the dump was and that probably was more attractive to the bears anyway. He had his cat up there and said the cat liked to go outside when it wasn't too cold and catch lemmings and other rodents, which were abundant.

When I was up there, Prudhoe Bay was basically a two company town.......BP (Sinclair) and Arco/Exxon. They both had permanent camps. Everyone else up there basically lived in temporairy camps. I dont know who was in charge of bear patrol, but every once in a while, you would see a helicopter moving around pretty slow. You could tell they were looking or tracking something. We always had a few guys that would trap the foxes and take the pelts to fur buyers in Anchoage. Everytime I see a woman wearing a white fox coat/jacket...I always wonder if I knew the fox....lol

All the camps had incinerators and the remains of them were all shipped back to Fairbanks and disposed of there. Ours was shipped back on backhauls of C-130 charters we used to fly in equipment/supplies for the drilling operation. The haul road was not finished till late in 74.......but my employer never used it. It was basically reserved for BP/Arco-Exxon/Aleska Pipeline Company. I see today it is a state highway and open to public.....one mean road. Dalton Highway is what they call it now to the newbies.....it will always be the haul road to me.

If we were drilling in a remote location ( ie no road contact with Prudhoe Bay) we used charter flights to resupply our camp/drill site. If we were connected by road to Prudhoe Bay.....the flights landed at Deadhorse. It was much easier to drill in winter time....we just would make ice roads to connect with gravel roads at Prudhoe.

Well enough of ancient Alaska history....this is probably making people mad.

I was agreeing with the Doctor that we had probably gone off on this tangent long enough. I'm glad we were interesting to somebody. Unfortunately, I've pretty much exhausted my second hand knowledge of Barrow and Northern Alaska. My friend did mention one interesting thing you could do up there (although it's hard to see how you could use it in a task). He said on the coldest days, you could take a bucket of steaming hot water outside and toss it from the bucket into the air. The water would freeze before it hit the ground and create a fairly large cloud of ice crystals in the process.

Loved hearing all this, but for clarity remember that Alaska is a wishlist and has nothing to do with any TAR 18 spoilers. Since some people from here are broadcasting elsewhere that RFF is saying TAR 18 is starting in Alaska.

Logged

"Our fans are pretty good. They don't give away too much. Sometimes people love dropping spoilers, but our fans are good. They tend to do it in such a way that doesn't ruin it for fans who don't want to know."--Phil Keoghan

Loved hearing all this, but for clarity remember that Alaska is a wishlist and has nothing to do with any TAR 18 spoilers. Since some people from here are broadcasting elsewhere that RFF is saying TAR 18 is starting in Alaska.

Yikes! OK, I've said enough about Alaska!

Maybe I'd better not mention my current co-worker that spent a couple of winters at the South Pole!

For the record, let me state that I have no knowledge of any plans for TAR 18 to visit Alaska or any other location. Given that they will be traveling in November and December, I think it is extremely unlikely that they will go to Alaska this next upcoming season.

calibound234

If season 18 begins filming next month as an 2nd All-Star season, I speculate that we may see more Africa and Oceania next season and possibly Brazil again with the chance of more Asia. I also hope we get 13 legs again with a intermediate destination on the final leg. Even an actual Pit Stop in Canada or Finland would be nice. Canada has been visited only twice and Finland once and both of these countries were either a intermediate stop or in Finland's case a TBC point. For Brazil, I hope they visit Manaus and Brasilia, and in Oceania a return to Australia would be nice and even a new Pacific Island country like Palau or Fiji. For Asia, Bahrain or Jordan is a chance, even Laos and Indonesia, but Central Vietnam is a must have and so is Malaysian Borneo. And for Africa, Morocco should make a comeback and Zimbabwe or Gabon should also get visits. For the final leg(s), Northern Alaska like Fairbanks or Barrow would be nice or Southeast Alaska would be great. Just have more starting lines that's not in Los Angeles for a while.

Is there any evidence for TAR 18 going to Alaska or is this just Storytime?

There's NO evidence that I'm aware of. Someone else suggested that they could possibly go to Northern Alaska during the late fall/early winter racing for a spring season of TAR. Dr. Rox and I went into massive overkill story time mode to suggest why this was unlikely. I kind of wish we hadn't because it's been confusing people ever since.

Is there any evidence for TAR 18 going to Alaska or is this just Storytime?

There's NO evidence that I'm aware of. Someone else suggested that they could possibly go to Northern Alaska during the late fall/early winter racing for a spring season of TAR. Dr. Rox and I went into massive overkill story time mode to suggest why this was unlikely. I kind of wish we hadn't because it's been confusing people ever since.

Ok, that's kind of what I got out of it. It seems like you were right that conditions would be too harsh.

"Our fans are pretty good. They don't give away too much. Sometimes people love dropping spoilers, but our fans are good. They tend to do it in such a way that doesn't ruin it for fans who don't want to know."--Phil Keoghan

Even though I don't personally like all those teams, I have to agree that these all have a fan following. One problem I see is that when they did the first all stars they didn't bring back any big time rivals. I don't think they want to open the season with teams that already hate each other like Kisha and Jen vs. Margie and Luke or Carol and Brandy vs. Brent and Caite. This would bring down the season, which is why they didn't do it before. Also, would watching Dandrew bumble around again really be that interesting?I would love to see Jet and Cord again and I know they must have gotten asked but I still don't think that they will do it together. Cord and Sara would be interesting though.

Even though I don't personally like all those teams, I have to agree that these all have a fan following. One problem I see is that when they did the first all stars they didn't bring back any big time rivals. I don't think they want to open the season with teams that already hate each other like Kisha and Jen vs. Margie and Luke or Carol and Brandy vs. Brent and Caite. This would bring down the season, which is why they didn't do it before. Also, would watching Dandrew bumble around again really be that interesting?I would love to see Jet and Cord again and I know they must have gotten asked but I still don't think that they will do it together. Cord and Sara would be interesting though.

I have to agree with you -- I don't think they'll bring back teams that hate each other, although Kisha & Jen and Margie & Luke might've gotten over their rivalry. Carol & Brandy and Brent & Caitie, not so much. One of those two teams will definitely not be on this All-Stars season.

Even though I don't personally like all those teams, I have to agree that these all have a fan following. One problem I see is that when they did the first all stars they didn't bring back any big time rivals. I don't think they want to open the season with teams that already hate each other like Kisha and Jen vs. Margie and Luke or Carol and Brandy vs. Brent and Caite. This would bring down the season, which is why they didn't do it before. Also, would watching Dandrew bumble around again really be that interesting?I would love to see Jet and Cord again and I know they must have gotten asked but I still don't think that they will do it together. Cord and Sara would be interesting though.

"Our fans are pretty good. They don't give away too much. Sometimes people love dropping spoilers, but our fans are good. They tend to do it in such a way that doesn't ruin it for fans who don't want to know."--Phil Keoghan

Just as you could say Rob & Amber and Joyce and Uchenna were rivals. You could also include Mary & Dave versus the Beauty Queens as the Pack Pack/ Six Pack were rivals with Tyler & James, Dustin and Kandice, and Rob & Kimberly. Its just out of those six teams there was also a specific Beauty Queens versus Bama rivalry as well.